Saturday Bird Droppings

ESPN took the time to interview 9 Big East players. As soon as their contract is up, they are gonna drop Big East football and give them the NHL treatment. I really wanted us (Rutgers) to move to the Big 10, but that is a different thread for a different day (and a different blog).

More on topic, 87% of respondents to the Rays question of the day said that the recent resurgence (their word, not mine) of the Orioles was solely due to the recent hiring of Buck Showalter. And if anyone knows baseball, it would have to be Rays fans.

In just over half as many plate appearances.

last year at this time Fox took the Os and Red Sox …. it was the only time the Os were on Fox all year …. they rocked some old school unis and for some reason Fox did a postgame interview with memlo. that’s all i remember right now.

whatever the Buck-McCarver game is, which should be Padres-Giants, ‘cause thats the best series of the weekend. Of course, there’s a good chance Joe might choose not to work this week (which is more often than not) and you’ll probably end up with O’s-Rays.

Anyway, I don’t love Fox’s Baseball coverage, but it’s still exciting to be on national tv. Can anyone remember the last sunday night game we played? I think it was against the White Sox in 2005.

pthbbbbbbbbbt baa aaa aaa > McCarver saying anything

I think that working for the Post gives him a misleading sample of the overall fan base. There’s an obnoxiously vocal minority that spent its time trying to boost the Nats when they arrived (sort of inventing tradition) that was always complaining whenever the Post covered the Orioles, or even mentioned them in a positive way (“This is the Washington Post, isn’t it?”) on any of the chats and stuff. I think those are the folks who set the tone that the Post writers pick up on, missing the fact that most area baseball fans are perfectly willing to a) hang on to their existing loyalties developed over the past 30 years or b) add the Nats to their rooting interests without needing to reject the Orioles, but unlike the boosters, they aren’t dicks about telling everyone else what to do.

Because if the O’s were at least moderately competitive, let alone a consistently a good club, the matriculation rate of fans switching teams would be significantly lower.

The Nats don’t have any kind of stranglehold of fans in limbo, though, so it’s not too late for the Orioles to capitalize on fans with mercurial loyalties.

That isn’t to say that the people who have switched clubs are completely bandwagon, but rather that it’s understandable to root for your true home team when the alternative isn’t remotely appealing.

We’re not talking about a franchise that had been in the ALCS a few years ago and was just in a slump, but rather an organization that is competing for their historical place as the least successful club in professional sports. As has been discussed many times, there are 21 year olds who haven’t ever seen the Orioles in any kind of a legitimate race.

The losses that I see as pretty much unrecoverable are those in NoVa, and even those peripheral fans that exist south of the Northern Virginia area, such as in North Carolina; again, it would have been a different story if the O’s posted season after season of success like the Ravens, though, as people would have good times to cling to despite the nonexistence or regional ties. As it stands, though, people who live in Falls Church are better served to wait until the Nats are a good team because then they’ll be pulling for their city.

When I got into football, the Redskins were the only team in town (and my father is a huge Redskins fan). When I got into baseball, the Os were all there was. I became attached to both of them, so when the Ravens moved into Baltimore, I didn’t start liking the Ravens (though I generally don’t dislike them, except when talking with Ravens fans). And when the Nats moved into DC, I definitely didn’t start liking them (with them, I do actively dislike them. Possibly BECAUSE the Os were so bad and all I heard was stories about how the Nats would steal all the Os fans, with my thoughts being “They’re the Expos. THEY’VE BEEN WORSE FAR LONGER THAN THE ORIOLES!”)